Divination
by Gamma Orionis
Summary: Hermione needs help with divination, so she asks for assistance from second-year Luna Lovegood. Prisoner of Azkaban.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: Okay, so, here's an attempt to write characters who aren't Death Eaters or Blacks, sort of in honour of the 34 Stories challenge. Enjoy.

)O(

Hermione Granger didn't like to admit there was anything she couldn't learn do.

From an early age, she had decided that she could figure out how to do anything she set her mind to, assuming she had enough books at her disposal. For the most part, this had worked for her. She had gotten top marks in muggle and Hogwarts classes alike, simply because she would latch onto an idea and then read until she had it figured out completely.

But this divination class wasn't working that way. No matter how much she read about it, she couldn't work out how she was supposed to predict the future by staring into the bottom of a teacup, much less a sphere of crystal. Professor Trelawney was no help, maintaining that the so-called "inner eye" would not see unless she believed it would. So Hermione had stared at the crystal ball until her eye developed a twitch, she had glared at the tea leaves, trying to twist them in her mind so that they looked like a cat, or a key, or a cross, or any of the symbols the book listed. But no matter what she did, she couldn't make them look like anything but tea leaves.

Which was why she was lowering herself to ask for help.

Hermione hovered outside the divination class before break, waiting for the second year class to come out.

She tried to look nonchalant as the twelve-year-olds climbed down the rope ladder to the divination room and filed away. They glanced in her direction, then looked quickly past her and continued on their way.

Hermione was feeling decidedly nervous, as she waited for the student she had been told had the greatest talent for divination. It offended her pride that she had to ask from help from a dotty student a year below her.

The last student out of the trapdoor shut it after her, and Hermione's heart skipped a beat. This had to be the girl she was waiting for.

She waited while the younger girl climbed down the ladder, and only after her mismatched shoes hit the floor did Hermione gather the courage to speak.

"Luna Lovegood?" she asked, a little more nervously than she would have liked.

The second-year turned to look Hermione in the eye, and Hermione stared at her. Oh yes. This could only be "Looney" Luna Lovegood.

Her hair was waist-length, blonde and rather scraggly and tangled, as though she hadn't combed it in some time. Her eyes were huge and silver, with slightly over-dilated pupils, and she fixed them right on Hermione's face, meeting her eyes directly. As if that wasn't enough, she was wearing a necklace made of butterbeer corks, and earrings in the shapes of radishes. Besides that, there was a sizable smear of blue potion on her collar, ink droplets spattering her nose, and Hermione was fairly sure she saw something crawling in the girl's hair.

"Yes?" said Luna Lovegood.

Hermione gulped. There was no way that she, Hermione Granger, model student, should be asking for help from a girl who couldn't be bothered to clean up properly. But she couldn't very well stop now.

"Er… I was told you're good at divination," she began. Luna smiled and nodded enthusiastically.

"It's my best subject," she said proudly.

_I can't imagine that's saying much._

"Well, I need help with it," Hermione said. "Do you think you'd be able to… give me some lessons?"

Luna nodded again, no less enthusiastically. Hermione was repulsed to see that she had been right about the crawling thing in Luna's hair, what seemed to be a spider scuttled out of the mess of blonde waves, and hurried along her shoulder, apparently trying to escape the vigorous nodding.

"Er… you have…" Hermione said, indicating Luna's shoulder. Luna looked down with mild interest, and tutted when she saw the spider.

"Bad nargle," she said, catching it with her fingernail. To Hermione, "I've been trying to breed them, you see." She held out her hand so that Hermione could see the creature.

It was indeed a spider, albeit one that seemed to have a fondness for pushing up on its back legs and waving its front legs in the air. Hermione didn't have the first clue what a "nargle" was or why Looney Lovegood should want to breed them, but she was fairly sure that this was a spider, nothing else.

Luna put her finger next to a strand of her hair, and let the spider crawl back onto it. Hermione shuddered.

"Sorry," said Luna brightly. "I would be happy to give you divination lessons."

"Good," Hermione said, trying not to think about that spider. "When can you start?"

"Oh, any time," Luna told her. "We could start right now if you like."

Hermione glanced at her watch. There were ten minutes left before her next class, and she needed to finish her transfiguration homework.

"I can't," she said, not altogether regretfully. "How about after the last class this evening?"

"All right," Luna nodded. "I'll meet you here?"

"Yes. That sounds good."

Hermione watched as Luna skipped away.

What had she let herself in for?


	2. Chapter 2

Warning: Merest shades of femslash. Enjoy.

)O(

Hermione spent the whole rest of the day worrying. She had always thought that people who called Luna Lovegood crazy were exaggerating, but… no. She had spiders living in her hair, called them "nargles", and wore butterbeer corks – _bloody butterbeer corks_ – as jewellery.

But Hermione was not going to let divination get the better of her.

So it was that Hermione Granger, the top student at Hogwarts, was waiting nervously by the ladder up to the divination classroom.

Of course, Luna was late. When she finally turned up, she seemed unaware that she had kept Hermione waiting. Hermione would have protested, but she really did need Looney Lovegood's help with divination.

"How are you?" Luna asked brightly, clambering up the ladder into the divination room. Hermione followed, making a general non-committal noise in her throat.

"Good," Luna said, apparently taking Hermione's noise to mean _Fine, thank you_.

"Right," said Hermione, lifting herself into the divination classroom. "So, how should we start out?"

"Pardon?" Luna asked, tilting her head and blinking innocently at Hermione.

"How do we start out?" Hermione repeated. "What do you teach me first?"

Luna shrugged. "I thought you would know. I mean, you were the one who wanted me to teach you."

Hermione shut her eyes, sighed with exasperation.

"Well, what's the most important sort of divination?" she asked.

"Oh, that would be crystal-gazing, I suppose," Luna said, sitting down on at one of the tables. "Is that what you'd like to start with?"

"Yes," said Hermione, grabbing a crystal ball off a shelf and setting it down in front of her. "What do I do first?"

"That depends what you want to know," Luna told her. "I always thought it was easiest to look for romance. Would you like to start with that?"

"Why not," Hermione said, shrugging. "How do I do that?"

"You ask the crystal ball to show you the person you will love," Luna said, as though that made sense.

"How do I do that?"

Luna blinked at Hermione, a little frown creasing her forehead. "Well, you talk to it, naturally. How else?"

"I… talk to the crystal ball?"

"Well, of course," Luna said, maddeningly serene.

"It can't hear me!" Hermione exclaimed. "It's a crystal!"

Luna blinked at her again.

"Oh, all right." Hermione stared at the crystal ball, trying not to let her irritation get in the way. She took several deep breaths, then said, as calmly and pleasantly as she could, "Show me the person I will love."

"Say please," Luna reminded her.

_It's a bloody crystal ball! I don't have to be polite!_

Hermione sighed, then began again.

"Could you _please_ show me the person that I will love? If it's not too much trouble."

Then she stared at the misty sphere.

And stared at it.

And stared.

And stared some more.

_This is absurd. I must be insane to even try this._

"I think I see something," Hermione said suddenly. "There's something in it!"

"What?" Luna asked.

"I'm not quite sure," Hermione admitted. "It looks like a person, though." She squinted at the crystal.

"Don't strain," Luna reminded her. "Relax, let it come into focus."

Hermione sighed. This was almost more annoying than not being able to see anything, to be able to _almost_ see it…

"Oh, hang on, I think I've got it!"

Hermione forced herself to breathe deeply, keep her eyes unfocussed, gazing blandly into the crystal.

"I think it's a girl," she said, and was surprised to hear the serenity in her voice. _That must be why Luna always sounds like that – you have to when you're crystal-reading_.

"Go on," Luna encouraged, never losing the lightness in her voice.

"I don't know what else, I can't see too well," said Hermione. "Except she has really long hair… and some sort of necklace… with… I don't know, some sort of big beads on it…"

"Big beads?" Luna asked. Hermione glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, and saw her fiddling with her butterbeer cork necklace.

"That's it!" Hermione was suddenly furious. She had been trying as hard as she could, and she had finally thought she was getting somewhere, but no, it was just Looney Lovegood's reflection. "There's no point!" She stood up, and stormed towards the trapdoor.

"What's wrong?" Luna asked, swivelling on her chair to watch Hermione.

"It was your reflection, your bloody reflection!" Hermione snapped. "I'm done with this! Divination doesn't work, it's just your mind playing tricks on you!"

She heaved the trapdoor open and lowered herself through it, leaving Luna, rather surprised, in her chair.

Luna sat there quietly for some minutes, then slowly turned to look at the crystal ball.

"Odd," she said to whoever might be listening. "I don't think I could be in the reflection from here…"

)O(

_Fin_


End file.
